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Wednesday, 3 June 2015

The recently concluded Principles of Reactive Programming on Coursera was a good introduction to the paradigm of Reactive Programming in the Scala programming language. It was a kind of sequel to "Functional Programming Principles in Scala" from last year. I say kind of as you can still take this course without taking the first one provided you have familiarity with Scala and functional programming ideas.

In a nutshell, here is what I think about the course.

It's an introduction to a different mode of concurrent programming, to reactive principles, all using Scala libraries. It does not go into much depth (which is probably a drawback of most MOOCs) but provides a foundation on which one can build. For example, I can dive deeper into Actor programming now that I know the fundamentals.

- Differences in teaching styles and video content among the three instructors make the ride jumpy. Or maybe I am just spoilt after taking Martin Odersky's Functional Programming course - which was superb. For the lectures on Actors, Learning Concurrent Programming in Scala has a chapter on Actors which I would recommend to be read first before viewing the lectures. The same is true for Futures.

- Assignments are completely test driven. That is good for grading, but passing the test is just the first step. Ensuring that your code is written using the finer points of the principles taught is up to you. You might get 10/10 using the automated test grader but your code might not be "correct". I had this experience in the final assignment. This has been pointed out by many in the forums too.

Overall, it's a must-take course if you plan to learn about Reactive Programming.